Volleyball Today: NCAA regionals schedule; Juniata wins again; coaching hires

Three more days until the NCAA Tournament regionals being. We’ve got the schedule.

We admit to not doing justice to Division III, but Juniata! What a story. We have the recap of the Eagles winning another championship — the hard way.

The coaching carousel has some news, both college and pro.

We’ve also got some international beach results from a Volleyball World pro stop in Pompano Beach.

And later Monday, in our 900 Square Feet weekly NCAA Zoom, ESPN and Big Ten Network analyst Emily Ehman and I will talk some round of 16 and interview both Louisville assistant Dan Meske and Heather Pavlik, the coach of the aforementioned Juniata dynasty.

It’s all in this edition of Volleyball Today:

NCAA volleyball Thursday, Friday

Here’s the schedule with times. All of Thursday’s matches are on ESPN2:

Thursday

At Pittsburgh (with all the second matches starting 30 minutes after the first ends)
1 p.m. — Missouri (22-8) vs. Kentucky (22-7), Oregon (24-7) vs. Pittsburgh (31-1)
At Louisville
7 p.m. — Florida (23-7) vs. Stanford (27-4), Purdue (27-6) vs. Louisville (27-5)

Friday

At Penn State
1 p.m. — Texas (20-6) vs. Creighton (31-2), Marquette (25-8) vs. Penn State (31-2)
At Nebraska
7 p.m. — Texas A&M (21-7) vs. Wisconsin (25-6), Dayton (31-2) vs. Nebraska (31-2)

See the updated bracket at NCAA.com. 

Pitt has the best record at 31-1 with the one loss to SMU. Creighton (five-set losses to Nebraska, Louisville), Dayton (to Loyola Chicago in the A10 final) and Nebraska (to SMU, Penn State).

Juniata makes it three DIII titles in a row

Juniata (35-0) capped its season with not only its 97th victory in a row, but a third consecutive NCAA Division III national championship.

And it wasn’t easy.

The Eagles defeated Wisconsin-Whitewater 25-19, 25-19, 15-25, 26-28, 15-10 in the final two days after pulling off a reverse sweep in the semifinals. Juniata was down 0-2 to Hope before an incredible 18-25, 22-25, 25-20, 25-15, 15-11 rally. 

Juniata had only lost four sets all season entering the semifinals but ultimately came away with the program’s fourth NCAA title. Mackenzie Coley led the Eagles in the title match with 19 kills, hitting .341, and had a dig and three blocks, one solo. Kennedy Christy had 18 kills, an assist, two aces, 12 digs and a block. Setter Olivia Foley had a kill, 56 assists, an ace, 18 digs and two blocks.

Read the Juniata recap here.

Wisconsin-Whitewater finished its season 31-4. Jenna Weinfurt had 25 kills, hit .302, and had two assists, 18 digs and two blocks.

Liberty tabs White; Hernández Cruz to coach PVF’s Thrill

Jeremy White, who had tremendous success at Southeastern Louisiana, is the new coach at Liberty. He takes over a team that finished 13-18 last season, 7-11 in Conference USA. Click here for the Liberty news release.

Liberty has been to the NCAA Tournament seven times, the last in 2012, and has never won an NCAA match.

Former LSU coach Fran Flory is moving full time into the general manager role for the Pro Volleyball Federation’s Vegas Thrill. Her replacement is Puerto Rican Olympian Rámon “Monchito” Hernández Cruz.

Read the Thrill news release here.

Beach Pro Tour Futures Pompano Beach

From Volleyball World:

American duos collected five of the six medals at the Pompano Beach Futures on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. 

Kimberly Hildreth and Xolani Hodel, Madison Shields and Avery Poppinga and Devon Newberry and Jaden Whitmarsh, in that order, lined up on the women’s podium. Tim Brewster and Logan Webber won the all-American men’s final against Caleb Kwekel and Gage Basey, while Norway’s Nils Gunnar Ringoen and Even Stray Aas finished in third place.

Click here to read the Volleyball World story that has photos of the respective podiums.

And click here for videos and interviews from our friends at The Spike Net.

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